Nandos. Rubbish food, rotten employer?

Personally I find Nandos to be just about the worst of the major restaurant chains although Jamies has now all but closed down and Ive managed to swerve Frankie and Benny’s.

The popularity of the chain is baffling to me but eating there is probably not as bad as working there

When are employees going to understand that petty bullying of staff and penny pinching is nothing more than tiny short term gain but a longer term loss in reputation and hopefully custom? Who would want to eat at a chain that treats its employees in a disgraceful manner?

We benefit from a flexible labour market in this country but adult companies know that its a two way street. This is particularly resonant in the current political climate and the consequences are expertly explained by Francis Fukuyama in his excellent short book Identity

Fukuyama is certainly no political extremist and would generally be described as right of centre but he’s correctly identified that the current disturbing trend towards political extremes is driven by the lack of ‘dignity’ that many voters feel.

But will the invoice financiers change?

In my recent piece I highlighted the fact that most invoice financiers are very sloppy about how they book referrals from so called “brokers”. Supposed interest from businesses are registered with virtually no prompting. Worse still, there “referrals” remain registered in favour of the “broker” for anything between a six months and a year

I suggested that there should be a code of conduct whereby the client has to have confirmed the appointment of the broker by email or the broker must have supplied an aged debtor at the very least. This should of course be a minimum requirement

So it has been interesting talking to lenders. A varied response indeed

A couple of lenders gave positive responses with one in particular stating that they are “targeted on conversions not leads” and this leads to proper confirmations of engagements. There was some genuine sympathy with what is seen as a destructive policy for the sector

Another stated that the very issue I’m highlighting had worked against a very decent broker in favour a call centre. Even though this lender is genuinely ethical, they still would not change their policy

Others couldn’t care less frankly.

I also engaged a couple of other brokers I know and the feelings were even stronger than mine. This really creates a lot of anger

This is not the last word on this subject.

Bombardier “rapped over late payments”

The investigation into Bombardier began after the small business commissioner’s office received a complaint from Alistair Hugo Catering and Events, a small business which had four outstanding payments totalling £5,600 for catering services and had failed to resolve these despite numerous attempts over a six-month period.

This is good news. Granted it will not immediately change the culture of late payments overnight but cases such as the above are a disgrace. Every credit manager is familiar with the scenario and at last there is at least an element of recourse

Naturally the other option would have been to take legal action and leave it at that but its pleasing to have the option.

Philip King, the commissioner has been a superb voice for credit management over the years, being both commercially aware yet conscious of the need for change. Ive engaged with him many times online and his blog has always been worth following

Do we need HS2?

Im surprised this has even been debated and i’m struggling to take seriously the opposition to the project

We can look at the actual detail of already heavily crowded infrastructure  and the immediate practical requirements but the overriding arguments are equally and perhaps even more persuasive

The fact is that train travel is immensely popular and growing. Ive just hopped on a Thameslink from London Bridge to Brighton and a better form of travel is inconceivable. It is the future.

Needless to say, Rail Travel is environmentally positive and that is surely more and more relevant with the increasingly disturbing weather patterns worldwide

And we badly need to bring the nations infrastructure to be that of a leading nation rather than that of an also ran. We also need to bring our cities closer together

Lastly, there are plenty of old school warriors who will still want their Jag and parking tickets but the upcoming generations are contemptuous of cars and traffic. A visit to a new prosperous start up these days is bikes on the bike rack not BMWs in the car park